I was going to save this piece for next week, but in light of the story breaking on the CTV about General Rick Hillier being replaced, I felt it was necessary to address something right away.<\/p>\n
In reading the comments on the above news article, I am shocked at how many Canadians actually think it was Rick Hillier that rebuilt the military and restored the faith and groundswell of support for our troops.<\/p>\n
A General within the military does not have the power to acquire Billions of dollars of funding from the Finance Ministry to rebuild the military. That feat was accomplished by the Honourable Gordon O’Connor.<\/p>\n
A General within the military is not the one that stick handles billions of dollars of expenditures through committees and the House of Commons in a minority government to ensure the purchases of equipment get made. That feat was accomplished by the Honourable Gordon O’Connor.<\/p>\n
A General within the military cannot swing deals with Boeing to get Canada’s C-17 heavy lift moved up to the front of the queue so that we can get our aircraft years ahead of schedule. That feat was accomplished by the Honourable Gordon O’Connor.<\/p>\n
The list goes on and on.<\/p>\n
The groundswell of support for our troops was not headed up by Hillier either. A big part of this was started by Lisa Miller and Karen Boire, the two young ladies who started the “Wear Red Fridays” drive. This single handedly has to be the one thing that has started to spread across the nation as a show of support for the troops and their families. I still wear red every Friday, even if it is just a small red ribbon pinned to my lapel with a Canada flag pin.<\/p>\n
I am not saying Rick Hillier should or should not be removed from his post. My opinion on that is neither here nor there. But what I am saying is that if praise is to be given for the restored quality of our military, and renewed faith that our forces are one of the best outfitted in the world, that praise should be given to the previous Minister of National Defence, Gordon O’Connor.<\/p>\n
I for one am extremely proud of Gordon O’Connor and all he has done to ensure our military is well outfitted. Below is a list of accomplishments Minister O’Connor accomplished while he managed the Defence portfolio.<\/p>\n
Major Accomplishments <\/strong><\/p>\n Budgetary Accomplishments:<\/strong> Policy\/Operational Accomplishments:<\/strong> CF Force Expansion:<\/strong> Quality of Life\/Other:<\/strong> I was going to save this piece for next week, but in light of the story breaking on the CTV about General Rick Hillier being replaced, I felt it was necessary to address something right away. In reading the comments on the above news article, I am shocked at how many Canadians actually think it […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_coblocks_attr":"","_coblocks_dimensions":"","_coblocks_responsive_height":"","_coblocks_accordion_ie_support":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[4,52],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-876","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-armed-forces","category-politics-federal"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/officiallyscrewed.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/876","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/officiallyscrewed.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/officiallyscrewed.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/officiallyscrewed.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/officiallyscrewed.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=876"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/officiallyscrewed.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/876\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/officiallyscrewed.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=876"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/officiallyscrewed.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=876"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/officiallyscrewed.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=876"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\n-Increased Defence budget by $5.3 billion over 5 years
\n
\nProcurement Accomplishments: <\/strong>
\nA 3-OCEAN NAVY, A ROBUST ARMY, AND A REVITALIZED AIR FORCE
\n\u00b7Announced up to 8 Arctic\/Offshore Patrol Ships ($7.4B)
\n\u00b7100 modern main battle tanks (Leopard 2) ($650M)
\n\u00b7Purchased 4 C-17 strategic airlift aircraft ($3.4B)
\n\u00b7Announced the intention to acquire 17 tactical airlift aircraft (C-130J) ($4.9B)
\n\u00b7Announced the intention to acquire 16 medium-heavy lift helicopters (Chinooks) ($4.7B)
\n\u00b7Announced the intention to acquire 2,300 medium-weight trucks ($1.2B)
\n\u00b7Announced the intention to acquire 3 Joint Support ships (JSS) (2.9B)
\n\u00b725 New Nyala Armoured Patrol Vehicles ($31M)
\n\u00b782 Armoured Heavy Support Vehicle Systems (AHSVS) ($87M)
\n\u00b75 Buffalo, 5 Cougar, and 6 Husky mine-protected vehicles ($29.6M)
\n\u00b76 M777 Howitzers
\n\u00b7Announced the modernization of 12 Halifax-Class Frigates ($3.1B)<\/p>\n
\n\u00b7Announced the establishment of an Air Expeditionary Wing at Bagotville
\n\u00b7Announced the re-opening of the College Militaire Royal (CMR) St-Jean
\n\u00b7Extension of Afghan mission until 2009
\n\u00b7Extension of NORAD Agreement, incl. maritime surveillance
\n\u00b7Deployment of HMCS Ottawa to the Gulf under Operation ALTAIR
\n\u00b7An infantry to protect the PRT
\n\u00b7A Leopard tank squadron to Kandahar
\n\u00b7Military engineers to PRT\u2019s
\n\u00b7Counter-mortar capability
\n\u00b7Opening of the Sergeant David L. Pitcher NORAD facility at North Bay<\/p>\n
\n\u00b7New Recruit Advertising Campaign Launched
\n\u00b7In 2006 the Total Paid Strength of the CF grew by over 2,000
\n\u00b7In October 2006, the recruiting process was streamlined<\/p>\n
\n\u00b7Introduction of a modernized pension plan for CF reservists
\n\u00b7New operational allowance for CF members who are medically repatriated
\n\u00b7Opening of the Operational Stress Injury Social Support (OSISS) facility at Gagetown
\n\u00b7$19 million provided to 41 Military Family Resource Centers
\n\u00b7Clifton Wenzel receives compensation<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"